1884.58.116

Collection type

Object

Description

Religious offering, wax model of nipple.

Geographical reference

France

Europe > Western Europe > France

Bretagne

Cultural groups

French

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection

Date / Period

Date made: 1800-1879?, uncertain

Date collected

?Prior to 1879

Acquisition information

Donated: 1884 Found unentered: Unknown date

Materials and processes

Material Wax, Process Moulded

Dimensions

Diameter: max 45 mm, Depth: max 24 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1884.58.116 PR no.: 9014

Research and responses

This object cannot be matched against any Ag nos in Blue black or red book. This object could have been obtained by Pitt Rivers during his visits to Brittany in October - November 1878 and March - April 1879. He stayed in France during the intervening winter. During the 1878 visit to Brittany he spent the majority of his time around Carnac. [Bowden, 1991: 86-7][Chapman, 1981: 410-2] [Thompson, 1977: 61]. This object might be described in the following article: Nature 22 23.9.1880 p512-3 'A considerable series is devoted to the development of religious properties of various kinds from different parts of the world. Side by side are placed the coarse wax models of breasts, hands, feet, eyes and other parts of the human body offered up at the present time in Roman Catholic shrines in France and elsewhere by persons who have been cured of diseases in those parts and the exactly similar earthenware models of the same parts which were used for a similar purpose in ancient Cyprus and have been found there in excavations. It is most curious how exactly the two series correspond.'[AP Leverhulme project on founding collection 1995-1998]

Search terms: Religion, Children and Childcare, Figure, Ornament, Model, Religious Offering, Amulet